It will be said that all this is a theory. Certainly it is: it is a theory to account for facts as they lie in the history, to account for so much being told us about the Papal authority in early times, and not more; a theory to reconcile which is, and what is not recorded about it; and, which is the principal point, a theory to connect the words and acts of the Ante-nicene Church with that antecedent probability of a monarchical principle in the Divine Scheme, and that actual exemplification of it in the fourth century, which forms their presumptive interpretation. All depends on the strength of that presumption. Supposing there be otherwise good reason for saying that the Papal Supremacy is part of Christianity, there is nothing in the early history of the Church to contradict it.

It follows to inquire in what this presumption consists? It has, as I have said, two parts, the antecedent probability of the Popedom, and the actual state of the Post-nicene Church. The former of these reasons has unavoidably been touched upon in what has preceded. It is the absolute need of a monarchical power in the Church which is our ground for anticipating it. Blackstone has expressed the principle in a sentence, quoted in an earlier page, as it relates to kingly power. A political body cannot exist without government, and the larger is the body the more concentrated must the government be. If the whole of Christendom is to form one Kingdom, one head is essential; at least this is the experience of eighteen hundred years. As the Church grew into form, so did the power of the Pope develope; and wherever the Pope has been renounced, decay and division have been the consequence. We know of no other way of preserving the Sacramentum Unitatis, but a centre of unity. The Nestorians have had their "Catholicus;" the Lutherans of Prussia have their general superintendant; even the Independents, I believe, have

had an overseer in their Missions. The English Church affords an observable illustration of this doctrine. As her prospects have opened, and her communion extended, the See of Canterbury has become the natural centre of her operations. It has at the present time jurisdiction in the Mediterranean, at Jerusalem, in Hindostan, in North America, at the Antipodes. It has been the organ of communication, when a Prime Minister would force the Church to a re-distribution of her property, or a Protestant Sovereign would bring her into friendly relations with his own communion. Eyes have been lifted up thither in times of perplexity; thither have addresses been directed and deputations sent. Thence issue the legal decisions, or the declarations in Parliament, or the letters, or the private interpositions, which shape the fortunes of the Church, and are the moving influence within her separate dioceses. It must be so; no Church can do without its Pope. We see before our eyes the centralising process by which the See of St. Peter became the Sovereign Head of Christendom.

If such be the nature of the case, it is impossible, if we may so speak reverently, that an Infinite Wisdom, which sees the end from the beginning, in decreeing the rise of an universal Empire, should not have decreed the development of a ruler.

To this must be added the general probability, which has been shown in the foregoing Chapter, that all true developments of doctrine and usage which have been permitted, and this in the number, have been divinely approved; and, again, the probability in particular in favour of the existence, in some quarter, of an infallible authority in matters of faith.

And, on the other hand, as the counterpart of these anticipations, we are met by certain announcements in Scripture, more or less obscure and needing a comment, and claimed by the Papal See as hav

ing their fulfilment in itself. Such are the words, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give unto Thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." Again: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." And "Satan hath desired to have you; I have prayed for thee, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Such, too, are various other indications of the Divine purpose as regards St. Peter, too weak in themselves to be insisted on separately, but not without a confirmatory power; such as his new name, his walking on the sea, his miraculous draught of fishes on two

His appearing first to him after His resurrection.

Magdalen occasions, our Lord's preaching out of his boat, and

It should be observed, moreover, that a similar promise was made by the patriarch Jacob to Judah: "Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: the sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come;" yet it was not fulfilled for perhaps eight hundred years, during which long period we hear little or nothing of the tribe descended from him. In like manner, "On this rock I will build My Church," "I give unto thee the Keys," "Feed My sheep," are, not precepts merely, but prophecies and promises, promises to be accomplished by Him who made them, prophecies to be interpreted by the event,— by the history, that is, of the fourth and fifth centuries, though they had a partial fulfilment even in the preceding period, and a still more noble development in the middle ages.

For instance, we have seen in an earlier Chapter that St. Cyprian allows to the Roman See the name of the Cathedra Petri; and even Firmilian is a witness that the See of Rome claimed it. Now in the fourth and fifth centuries this title and its logical results became prominent. Thus, St. Julius, who was Pope during the persecution of St. Athanasius (A.D. 342), remonstrated by letter with the Euse

bian party for "proceeding on their own authority as they pleased," and then, as he says, "desiring to obtain our concurrence in their decisions, though we never condemned him. Not so have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the traditions of the Fathers directed; this is another form of procedure, a novel practice... For what we have received from the blessed Apostle Peter, that I signify to you; and I should not have written this, as deeming that these things are manifest unto all men, had not these proceedings so disturbed us."1 St. Athanasius, by preserving this protest, has given it his sanction. Moreover, it is alluded to by Socrates; and his account of it has the more force, because he happens to be incorrect in the details, and therefore did not borrow it from St. Athanasius:"Julius wrote back," he says, "that they acted against the Canons, because they had not called him to a Council, the Ecclesiastical Canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make Canons beside the will of the Bishop of Rome."2 And Sozomen: "It was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside the will of the Bishop of the Romans." On the other hand, the heretics themselves, whom St. Julius withstands, are obliged to acknowledge that Rome was "the School of the Apostles and the Metropolis of orthodoxy from the beginning;" and two of their leaders, (Western Bishops,) some years afterwards recanted their heresy before the Pope in terms of humble confession.

Another Pope, St. Damasus, in his letter addressed to the Eastern Bishops against Apollinaris (A. D. 382), calls those Bishops his sons. "In that your charity pays the due reverence to the Apostolical See, ye profit the most yourselves, most honoured sons. For if, placed as we are in that Holy Church, in which the Holy Apostle sat and taught, how it becometh us to direct the helm to which we have 1 Athan. Hist. Tracts. Oxf. tr. p. 56. 2 Hist. ii. 17. 3 Hist. iii. 10.

succeeded, we nevertheless confess ourselves unequal to that honour; yet do we therefore study as we may, if so be we may be able to attain to the glory of his blessedness."1 "I speak," says St. Jerome to the same St. Damasus, "with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of the Cross. I, following no one as my chief but Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. I know that on that rock the Church is built. Whosoever shall eat the Lamb outside this House is profane; if a man be not in the Ark of Noe, he shall perish when the flood comes in its power."2 St. Basil entreats St. Damasus to send persons to arbitrate between the Churches of Asia Minor, or at least to make a report on the authors of their troubles, and the party with which the Pope should hold communion. "We are in no wise asking anything new," he proceeds, "but what was customary with blessed and religious men of former times, and especially with yourself. For we know, by tradition of our fathers of whom we have inquired, and from the information of writings still preserved among us, that Dionysius, that most blessed Bishop, while he was eminent among you for orthodoxy and other virtues, sent letters of visitation to our Church of Cæsarea, and of consolation to our fathers, with ransomers of our brethren from captivity." In like manner, Ambrosiaster, a Pelagian in his doctrine, which is not to the purpose, speaks of the "Church being God's house, whose ruler at this time is Damasus."3

"We bear," says St. Siricius, another Pope, (A.D. 385,) "the burden of all who are laden; yea, rather the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in us, who, as we trust, in all things protects and defends us the heirs of his government."4 And he in turn is confirmed by St. Optatus. "You cannot deny your

Theod. Hist. v. 10.

3 In 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15.

2 Coustant, Epp. Pont. p. 546. 4 Coustant, p. 624.